


the way i look at you (i thought you'd never notice)

by queenrinacat



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, I Admit It, but tbh its pure fluff before and after, i am laferry trash, okay so theres a brief spat in the middle, theyre so cute it makes my teeth hurt, this is mostly fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 19:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4973146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenrinacat/pseuds/queenrinacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perry keeps stealing their clothes. It's really distracting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the way i look at you (i thought you'd never notice)

They live together, okay?

And when two people live together, especially if they’ve been friends as long as LaFontaine and Perry have, they share clothes.

It’s kind of inevitable. It’s not like they mean to; things just slip through the cracks, and soon enough their closets are kind of permanently mixed together. They’re about the same size, after all, and when you’re rushing to get out in the morning you tend not to be too fussed about whose plaid shirt this is. (At least, LaFontaine’s not.)

At first, it drives Perry mad. She spends ages trying to sort their wardrobes, in between berating LaF for leaving their clothing on the floor (“LaFontaine, you  _know_ that dirty clothes breed! They make more dirty clothes if you leave them lying about!”) and bemoaning scorch marks on her turtlenecks (“LaFontaine! What did I say about doing experiments in my shirts?” “Technically, Perr, it’s not a shirt, it’s a turtleneck.” Perry’s reply was a wordless noise of frustration, before she threw up her hands and declared “I give up.”).

Just to piss her off, LaFontaine starts stealing her clothes on purpose. At first, Perry just sighs, rubbing her temples, seeming to have resigned herself to the accidental intermingling of their wardrobes. It takes her a bit to notice what they’re doing, before she realizes that every morning, without fail, the item of clothing they wear for the day will be hers. (It doesn’t quite register that this isn’t accidental until she sees them wearing her favorite turtleneck—the same one they’ve made fun of her for because, well, it’s festive, alright?)

It all starts on the eighth day of LaFontaine’s not-so-secret passive-aggressive clothing theft. They’ve already entered their dorm room, slinging their bag onto the bed, when Perry registers the horrible (not horrible,  _festive_ ) pattern of reindeer dancing around a Christmas tree on the sweater. Slowly, she puts down the bottle of lemon-scented Lysol that she’d been using to wipe down the windows, and delicately peels the plastic cleaning gloves from her hands.

It’s at that moment that LaFontaine truly knows they’re fucked.

She doesn’t say anything, but thins her lips, staring pointedly at the sweater before narrowing her eyes.  _Oh shit,_ they think, but to their surprise, all Perry does is calmly put away the cleaning supplies under the sink before straightening and passing by them without so much as a remark about the sweater they’ve appropriated.

There’s only one thing Perry can do.

Retaliate.

\------

It starts small.

First, it’s a tie. LaF is searching for it frantically, rummaging through both their and Perry’s drawers looking. Perry looks unconcerned.

“Why do you need this tie so badly?”

  
“Because! It’s my first day with a new prof and I—“ LaF is arrested by a horrible suspicion. They turn, slowly, to look at Perry, who’s the picture of innocence. She might as well be whistling.

“Perr. What did you do.”

She smiles. “Nothing, sweetheart. Maybe if you kept your clothes more organized, this wouldn’t happen.”

LaF has to bite their tongue to keep themself in check, resigning themself to a day without a tie. At least they have new shoes.

When they peek back over at Perry, the innocent smile has turned into a smirk as she pretends to study her textbook. Feeling their stare, she looks up, and raises a cocky eyebrow. 

 _This means war,_ they think gleefully.

\-------

“LaFontaine, have you seen—ah.”

“What?”

Perry crosses her arms, looking pointedly at the shirt they’re wearing and tapping her foot. LaFontaine has to bite the inside of their cheek to keep from laughing.

“You’re wearing my shirt.”

“Am not! It’s…it’s new.”

“Because florals are your thing now.”

“Yeah! Exactly.”

\-------

The next morning, Perry is sporting a new vest. Though much shinier than it had ever been when in LaFontaine’s possession, it is still, undoubtedly, the same one they had been wearing only two days ago. Naturally, the theft is vehemently denied.

\-------

The war goes on.

LaFontaine steals her hairbrush. (“LaFontaine you don’t need a hairbrush you only need a comb _give that back”_ “How do you even get this through your hair? I’d have thought its too tangly.” Perry only replies with a wordless screech as she snatches the hairbrush from their hand.)

So Perry steals their hair gel. (“Perr, what could you even use that for? Your hair’s too curly to do anything with!”)

LaFontaine starts using her shampoo (which has nothing to do with how the faint scent of it, like the ghost of Perry, makes them weak at the knees.)

Perry wears their “I love science” shirt, one of their most treasured possessions purely because she made it for them. (“Perr! You gave that to me!” “And? Now I’m taking it back.”)

After five days, both of them have completely stopped pretending that they’re not outright stealing from each other to make the other mad.

\---------

 

After about two weeks of this madness, they declare a reluctant truce. (Because “LaFontaine I do not have a single clean item of clothing left and I fully blame this entire mess on you so you had better—” “Straighten up and fly right?” they cracked, chuckling to themselves but—oh. Oh dear. Perry is not amused.) Besides, it’s midterms now, so they really don’t have time for petty warfare in the form of clothing theft.

So the war is over, but still, there are slip-ups. Except now, for some reason seeing Perry wear their clothing makes their throat dry and their ears turn red because Lola Perry wearing their clothing makes them start thinking about… _things._ Things they  _absolutely should not_ be thinking about. It’s not like they’re  _attracted_ to her, that would be ridiculous, they’re just…possessive, about their clothes, and wondering what those clothes would look like pulled off and tossed on the floor of their room is just…a natural byproduct of that. Right. Yes.

...Totally.

Whatever the reason, seeing Perry wearing their clothing makes their face flush with heat now. And it’s getting worse. One morning, LaFontaine looks up to see Perry exiting the bathroom, yawning and running a hand through hair mussed with sleep, red locks curling every which way into a halo around her head. LaF admires her bedhead affectionately. (They've always wanted to do experiments to find out how her hair does that, but she's always batted them away, horrified at the thought of scalpels and electrodes coming near her hair. They've tried to explain to her that that's not how it works, but to no avail.) She mumbles a good morning, but LaF can’t focus because the neck of her silk pajama shirt has slipped off one shoulder, a single red curl falling against a pale collarbone and the whole picture is _ridiculously_ distracting.

It’s not until she begins to sleepily strip off the silk pjs she’s been sleeping in, pulling her shirt up off her head until they can see a strip of her stomach between the hem and the waistband of her pants that they realize they’re staring. They swallow, averting their eyes because  _they really should not be looking at their best friend this way_ and stammer out something about getting to the lab early. Perry blinks at them slowly, brows furrowed in confusion. They mumble again about having to leave early today, and she shakes her head, like she’s coming up from underwater.  _Thank God for midterms and sleep deprivation._

“So, I have to go, yeah?”

Perry blinks again. “Hmm?”

And she’s still looking unfairly beautiful, half-asleep with hair that’s mostly managed to escape its nightly bun and pale skin highlighted by the early dawn, so they just emphatically repeat “I have to go,” before fleeing out the door. They’re so desperate to escape they don’t even notice that their shirt’s misbuttoned, their bag empty of half the things they need for the day (when they realize the vital materials they’re missing, they smack their face with the palm of their hand, trying not to think about why they’re missing them); they don’t notice that their lunch (packed helpfully by Perry every day the night before and  _wow they are so married_ ) is still lying on their bed, and they certainly don’t notice the lost, slightly hurt look on Perry’s face as they abscond out the door.

\-------

Perry brings them their lunch around noon, and their eyes light up, grabbing for the food while she watches, amused. They don’t talk about LaF’s hasty exit.

\-------

Day two, and Perry brings them some file folders they left on their bed.

\-------

Day three, and they have to shrug off the guilt they feel when they see Perry approaching them like they’re a wild animal, afraid she’ll scare them off. They smile, but their heart’s not in it.

\-------

Day four, and LaF has started pre-packing their bag for the next day.

\-------

_Ugh._

LaF just wants to study, dammit, but the library is going through an existential crisis where it can’t decide if it wants to join the inevitable march towards entropy that every Euclidean space holds or something, and they’d really rather like to stay corporeal, thanks. So that’s out. The cafeteria ladies are preparing for Pie Day, so the caf’s out too. (Part of them wants to run more experiments, and part of them remembers what happened the last time and never wants to think about that ever again.)

Resigned, they about-face and head to the dorms, praying that Perry will be too busy studying herself to ask them why they’ve been avoiding her.

They reach the room, and hesitantly push open the door, holding their breath and praying—

No such luck.

She watches impassively as they sit at their desk and open a biology textbook, staring unseeing at diagrams of molecular structure and non-mammalian anatomy. (Is that even real? It doesn't look real. Wait, wasn't this supposed to be a _human_ anatomy course? No, they remember, the teacher just said bipedal. Not human, necessarily.) Perry says something, and they pretend to turn a page before they realize she was talking to them.

“Hmm?”

“What’s wrong,” she repeats, placing her palms flat on their desk. She doesn’t budge, even when they curl further into themself, hugging their textbook tightly. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose before crossing her arms impatiently.

“Honestly, LaFontaine. You know, I thought you’d come around to telling me in your own time, but you’re clearly not.”

LaFontaine peeks up at her. “Tell you what?”

Perry throws up her hands. “What’s wrong!”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Don’t lie to me, LaFontaine.”

LaFontaine tenses their jaw. And she thinks they're about to  _finally_ explain when—

“I have to go study.”

And they’re fleeing again.

\------

Perry brings them their lunch (again) the next day, tight-lipped. They don’t look at her, but mumble their thanks. They think they’re fighting, sort of? but really they’re not sure. And to think they started the whole mess by trying to _avoid_ drama.

They don’t talk about LaF’s behavior around Perry again for two weeks.

\------

So they fall into a pattern, because this stupid… _attraction_ isn’t going away. Every morning, Perry changes in front of them because why wouldn’t she? They’ve been best friends for over fifteen years, and every morning, LaFontaine has to forcefully avert their eyes when she does, running from the room as soon as they can. Even at night, when Perry begins to undress to get into her pjs they make excuses to exit the room.

They make extra effort not to wear her clothes, now, and their drawers are the most organized they’ve ever been.

\------

Of course, they shouldn’t have expected to been able to get away with the whole running-away-as-soon-as-she-enters-the-room thing for long. Perry hits her breaking point after two weeks of near-silence and stonily enduring the thick aura of discomfort always emanating from LaFontaine in her direction.

“Please, Su-LaFontaine,” she begs, cornering them one day outside the lab. “I’m sorry if I did something wrong to make you angry, so please let me fix it.”

They try to mumble an excuse to leave, and turn to go before they feel a hand on their arm, and a furious Lola Perry pulling them to face her.

“Oh no, don’t you dare LaFontaine, I am trying to talk to my  _best friend_ ” (they flinch slightly, because yeah, what a great best friend they are, not talking to her for two weeks because they’re painfully attracted to her stupid face) “so I can find out why they’ve been avoiding me!”

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” they say, but can’t look her in the eyes.

“Bullshit.”

They snap their head to look at her, eyes wide. Perry  _never_ curses, never. Fuck, she must be super fucking pissed to curse at you.  _How the hell can I get out of this one?_

“Don’t tell me that you’re not avoiding me, because you have been, LaFontaine, don’t you dare lie to me,” she spits out, hurt and anger screwing up her face.

LaFontaine’s heart breaks a little at the pain in her voice, and they can feel themself starting to crumble. They look down, but can’t keep their chin from trembling slightly. They hate arguing with Perry, and they can’t bear to make her upset. It feels like sawing part of them away.

Seeing their face, her eyes soften, and the hold on their arm loosens, the vice grip replaced with a gentle squeeze before Perry runs her hand down their arm to take their hand. They’ve held hands plenty of times before; there’s nothing unusual in the gesture, but LaFontaine feels like a traitor, like they don’t deserve to have their hand held by the sweet girl who doesn’t know how they’ve been feeling. ( _Who wouldn’t be friends with them if she knew_ , a voice whispers traitorously.)

“Please,” she pleads again. “Just tell me what’s wrong so I can make things right. I—I miss my best friend. It’s like we don’t even live in the same room anymore.”

At “best friend,” LaF jerks their hand away, and Perry steps back, stung.

Perry closes her eyes, before opening them to pin LaFontaine with a suspiciously shiny stare.

“If you won’t tell me what’s wrong, should I just assume that you’re going to keep on avoiding and hating me until we stop being friends altogether?”

“No, no!” LaFontaine says, panicked, flapping their arms about. “It’s not you, it’s really not, it’s me!”

“Because that doesn’t sound like a breakup line.”

“No, it’s not that, I swear, I just, I can’t be around you right now.”

“If you can’t stand the sight of me, the least you could do is admit it,” Perry snaps.

LaFontaine starts to laugh wetly, burying their face in their hands. Perry looks outraged. “God, Perr, that’s kind of the opposite of the problem.”

“I don’t understand,” she says stiffly.

They kinda... gesture vaguely at all of her. “I mean, you’re…you know…”

Perry looks bewildered, then hurt. “If the sight of me is so repulsive to you—” she tries, before her throat closes up, more than she can swallow down the way she has been for two weeks. She moves to go.

LaFontaine thinks she looks like she’s about to cry and oh god no they never wanted to be the reason Lola Perry was crying so they blurt out “Wait, stop!”

Perry is biting her lip, and staring at the ground, but at least she isn’t leaving anymore. Progress, LaF supposes.

“I’m…I’m super fucking attracted to you okay, and I’m not sure where it came from so I’m  _trying_ to be a gentleman—person—about this and not perv out whenever you’re changing, okay?”

LaF scrubs at their eyes wearily. “And I’m really sorry because that was a really stupid thing to say and…and…” they trail off helplessly, not sure where to go from there.

Perry looks stunned, her lips parted in surprise. “Oh.”

LaF feels their heart plummet to the ground, because really, what were they expecting? Some grand declaration of love reciprocated after all? Wait, what? Who said anything about love? But there’s no time for introspection now, now is the time for making sure Lola Perry doesn’t hate you.

“Fuck, I’m sorry I just made everything super awkward I—”

Perry, of course, rushes to reassure them, giving a comforting squeeze to their upper arm.

“No, no sweetheart of course you didn’t—”

But LaF doesn’t let her finish, tears pricking at their eyes as they turn away, making wide strides toward their dorm but, wait, where could they go now? They live with Perry, the dorm isn’t an escape. Whatever, it doesn’t matter, it feels good to storm off.

“Wait!”

They don’t stop walking.

“LaFontaine!” they hear Perry call after them, and they hear the sound of pattering footsteps rushing to catch up. They stop, and ball their hands into fists, squeezing their eyes shut tightly enough that a few tears leak out.

“I swear to god, Perr, if you’ve come just to make fun of me—”

Perry purses her lips. “Have I ever done that?”

LaFontaine squints at her. “Uh, yeah.”

“Only when you deserve it, weirdo,” she scoffs.

LaF rolls their eyes. “Control freak.”

And they already feel better from a half-second of banter but now oh no, fuck, they’re standing far too close now and they just kind of stare, drinking in the sight of her face, the air growing heavy around them.

Perry twists her hands together, staring at the floor.

“Did you mean it?”

“What?”

“What—what you said. Did you mean it?”

LaFontaine swallows, and scuffs one of their sneakers against the ground. “Yeah,” they mumble.

Perry looks into their eyes searchingly, like she’s trying to find a lie, and they stare back defiantly and there it is again, the charge in the air they thought they’ve been imagining. The air is so thick now, crackling with static that they think something in them is about to snap when—

Whatever train of thought LaF had entertained is cut off when Perry kisses them, cupping their cheeks in her hands and LaF is kissing her back, falling into it as easily as they breathe because they  _fit,_ they always have, sliding one hand around her waist to pull her flush against them and one hand tangling in that gloriously chaotic hair of hers. The kiss turns soft and gentle and sweet, becoming more a series of chaste kisses until their lips are just brushing, like butterfly’s wings. Perry pulls back slightly, smiling shyly before letting out a tiny giggle and trying to kiss them again, but really now they’re both smiling too hard, so it’s more an awkward bumping of lips and noses but that’s wonderful, that’s so very  _them_ LaF can’t breathe.

Perry’s hands are locked around their neck now, and LaFontaine’s have slid down to rest on her hips. Perry rests her forehead against theirs, and their breaths mingle in the tiny space between their lips, both of them breathing a little shallowly. Perry gives a tiny chuckle, and shakes her head minutely, giving them a sly smile.

“Well, it’s  _about time_.”

LaF pulls back enough to look her in the face properly (but not enough to detach from the warm embrace of her arms), looking indignant.

“Wait, you  _knew?!_ ”

Perry’s smiling at them lovingly, and their breath catches in their throat. “Of course I knew, you weirdo."

She shakes her head, disbelieving. "I can't believe I got there before you did.”

LaF starts to splutter, saying “What—but—that’s not fair!! I spent  _ages_ agonizing over this and—!”

Perry rolls her eyes. “Well, I spent ages waiting for you to catch up,” she counters, but she’s smiling too widely for her words to have any bite.

LaF steps close again, hands tightening slightly on her hips. They see Perry’s gaze flicker to their lips again, and they swallow. By fractions, they incline their head towards hers, before lifting themselves slightly to whisper in her ear.

“Right now, I really, really want to go back to our room, and not leave until the sun comes up.” A heartbeat passes, and they panic slightly, reconsidering because wow that was  _super_ forward and they open their mouth to apologize but Perry has already spun around, a vice grip on their hand. She starts seriously pacing it back to their room, dragging them along behind her and they stumble a bit before catching up.

“What—”

Perry yanks them into their room unceremoniously, standing a foot away from them facing away.

“Perr…?” They ask, a little uncertainly.

Perry whirls around, eyes dark and breathing ragged. She slams them into the door, the bang reverberating against their back and then it’s not gentle or sweet or soft at all, it’s hard and passionate and messy, years of pent up frustration exploding at once and there are teeth clashing and tongues and bites and noises swallowed down by each other’s mouths.

\-------

They spend an entire night learning each other’s bodies the way they know each other’s hearts.

LaF learns where to make Perry gasp and arch her back, whimpering into the pillow, and Perry learns how to render LaF completely incomprehensible for once in their life, a litany of  _Perr_ and  _Perry_ and  _Lola_ (when Perry heard her first name said by LaF like that, in that desperate, ragged voice, she bit hard enough to give them a bruise) and then  _fuck_ until they’re just chanting her name like it’s a mantra, like it’s the only word they know anymore.

Sometimes, it’s a little like giving in, surrendering to what’s been building between them for years in tiny blocks of affection, like the river stones they made castles with when they were five. It’s like staring at her when she’s not looking when they’re twelve and lying on a hillock of grass under a night sky packed with stars, gigantic and intimidating and curving over their heads with its hugeness, shyly tangling together fingers as they name the stars, giving them stories because “I like to feel like I can control the history of something so big.” It’s like silent affection, a touch on the shoulder, a kiss on the cheek, a blanket wrapped around them when they’re too wrapped up in work to sleep.

Sometimes, it’s a little like fighting, her nails scratching at their scalp and tugging on their hair, lips swollen and breaths short, and LaFontaine thinks that there must not be enough oxygen in the room because they can’t get enough air or enough of her, of Perry, of  _Lola,_ of the fight and fire that’s always sparked behind her eyes. Then, LaF can feel every ounce of iron in her spine, all the bravery and strength people tend to overlook. It’s like arguing over holiday traditions because “Pipettes are terrible stocking stuffers, LaFontaine” and being forced to wear ugly sweaters and bickering over whether LaFontaine can bring the experiment inside (the immediate answer is always no, but LaFontaine didn’t learn the power of the puppy eyes for nothing.) Even at those times, it’s still like affection, frustration with its exasperated hand gestures belied by soft eyes, like being fed freshly-baked cookies or brought hot cocoa when they’re sad, and sometimes even when they’re not.

No matter what it’s like, like giving in or like love or like fighting, all LaF can think about is the way she tastes, like disbelief and joy and the snickerdoodles she made earlier (the cookies of stress, they think) and seventeen years of love.

Hearing Lola Perry whisper words of love into their mouth, tasting the sincerity and weight of every word, LaFontaine thinks must be as close to heaven as humans can get.

(Of course, it’s not all so PG.)

In the unholy hours of so-late-it’s-morning, they bite down on her shoulder to stifle a moan because “ _shhhh_ , people are trying to sleep” (a statement made not super convincing by the throaty chuckle accompanying it) but then Perry curls her fingers and it’s really not fair to expect them to be quiet and LaF whimpers, saying  _“Fuck me,”_ and Perry smirks and says “That’s the idea.” (They remind her of this after, holding it up as a sign that she does, indeed, have a sense of humor, and a dirty one at that.)

Well, they just have to get her back for that. It’s only fair. (In the morning, Perry will look scandalized at the marks all over her, clucking her tongue and raising disbelieving eyebrows at every new bite or bruise discovered. “It’s a good thing you wear nothing but turtlenecks, then,” LaFontaine snarks, raising an eyebrow. What they hadn’t thought of is that Perry can kiss them to shut them up now, so now Perry is going to have some more marks to cover up with turtlenecks.)

At any rate, there isn’t much talking for a while after that.

 

\---------

 

The sun is rising, casting the room in a warm glow, the gray of predawn chased away by the sunlight slanting through the window. They lie together, exhausted, spent, too sore to move from their sweaty tangle of limbs and sheets.

“I can’t believe,” LaFontaine chuckles exhaustedly, wriggling and feeling the delicious stretch of sore muscles, “That you never told me. We could have been doing this ages ago.”

Perry’s brow furrows at that. “You have no idea,” Perry murmurs, “How long I spent so worried, so sure you didn’t like me that way and I…I had accepted that.” She smiles, a little sadly, in recollection.

LaFontaine props themself up slightly, to look her full in the face.

“You were never going to tell me?”

Perry shrugs. “Why would I?”

“Because!” LaF would be more indignant, but really, they’re too tired, so they flop down again. “You can’t just withhold vital information like that! It’s not right.”

She makes an amused noise in the back of her throat and smoothes some damp hair from their forehead, sweeping away strands stuck there.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I just…I never wanted to make you uncomfortable, or upset, the way that I would be, if, if you were pining after me and I didn’t feel the same.”

“Pining?” they whisper.

Even more quietly, she answers, “I’ve been in love with a mad scientist for a while now.”

LaF kisses the tips of her fingers one by one, and interlaces their hands, pressing a kiss to her cheek before nudging her with their nose.

“It’s a good thing I’ve kinda been in love for a while with a nannyish floor don, then.” LaF grins. “Lucky us, huh?”

Perry smiles, as radiant as the rising sun behind her. She leans in, and kisses them, soft and sweet and warm.

“Lucky us.”

 

 


End file.
